| Conflict can arise from a disagreement of perspectives within the workplace, and such conflict, if not managed and resolved effectively, ultimately can negatively affect employee perspectives about their workplace environment and overall business productivity. There are different factors that may influence the way of handling conflict within the workplace. The purpose of this research study was to explore whether employee ownership may be one of the prime factors associated with and even predictive of the type of conflict management style used within highly productive work environments in the state of Colorado. A literature review shows that the current study had a strong theoretical base and justifies the research by proving that there is a literature gap in the field that provides a basis for further investigation. Therefore, this study implemented quantitative research methods to formally examine if there is any difference between employee-owners and non employee-owners when handling Rahim's five conflict management styles with their peers at the workplace. The results suggest that these groups differ in their overall conflict styles. This difference seems to be most attributable to employee ownership being related to an increased utilization of the obliging style. However, the comparisons involving the individual conflict styles found no significant differences, though the difference on the obliging style approached statistical significance. This study also categorized individuals from employee owned companies into sub-classifications based on the nature of the employee ownership. Comparisons of these subtypes provide some initial evidence that there may be significant variation in conflict styles among the various types of employee ownership. |
